Read // Taohun

IX

"Zitao," a voice came out of the dark, startling me from my sleep.
I rose up, and rubbed my eyes to see a figure standing in front of the bedroom door. The light from the hallway was spilling onto the manager, whom I shared a room with.
The last time I woke up the manager he locked me out of the room for the entire day and made me sleep in the living room.
I didn't want that to happen again, so I quickly slid my slippers on, and walked towards whoever was standing at the door.
The light was hitting said persons face, and I realized it was Sehun. His eyes were stained red from crying.
I lightly pushed him out of the doorway, and closed my bedroom door behind us.
Sehun's gray hair was sticking out in random places; only making me feel more sorry for him.

"Sehun, what's wrong?"

The smaller boy sniffled before replying,
"Suho kicked me out because I couldn't stop crying, and he's still mad at me."

A long sigh escaped my lips.

First of all, no one had any right to be mad at Sehun. As soon as Sehun came out as gay to us, everyone besides me shoved him away. Not even Luhan dared to talk him, and they were like brothers. Suho had always said we were like family, but right now we all had turned away from each other. The only time we acted like a family was when we were filming for our new show "EXO SHOWTIME."

Little did our fans know that we were all mad at each other, Kris was super sick and was being fueled by medications, and Chanyeol was silently being harassed by one of our female managers. (He had come to me for that issue which was quite surprising since he teased me a lot).

I grabbed Sehun's wrist and pulled him into the living room, and sat him on the couch. Once we were sitting, I grabbed his hands, and looked into his eyes. The brown pools were swirling with sadness and emptiness.
Seeing my friend hurting this much made tears roll down my cheeks as I told him the same thing my mother told me,
"Sehun, don't ever be ashamed of who you are. I'm proud of who you are. I'm proud to call you my friend. I'm proud of all the things you've been able to do at such a young age. You're kind, caring, and sometimes stupid," the both of us quietly laughed, "and that's what makes you great. You're talented at many things, and I'm envious of that! Be proud of who you are! Don't let these other guys bring you down just because you prefer men over women. There is nothing wrong with that!"
Apparently my speech was too loud because our manager walked into the living room with the nastiest look spread across his face.

"You're fucking joking. Tao go back to our room, Sehun and I need to talk."

For some reason an angry fire rose up in my stomach when I saw our manager, and I looked him in the eyes and said,
"No."

"What did you just say to me?!"

"I said no."

If someone wanted to lash out on Sehun, they would have to get through me first.